Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment general freedom

Freedom for the Stars?

Bill Cosby, Britney Spears

Bill Cosby is out of prison, but Britney Spears is still captive.

Once the titan of comedy, Cosby has just been released from prison because a judge threw out his three-year-old conviction on due process grounds. It may be the case that the ruling is correct, while the substance of the original judgment — Mr. Cosby’s guilt for aggravated indecent assault — remains sound. Sometimes the guilty go free.

The “Princess of Pop,” on the other hand, has not been released from her confinement.

After a series of hit singles and albums, and a wild phase in the mid-2000s, Ms. Spears was placed under a conservatorship. Though worth tens of millions, she was given a $2000 per week allowance, forbidden to marry or take out her birth control device, and forced to work under the direction of her father and managers. 

She may be the world’s richest slave.

Conservatorships are designed to protect the health, welfare and rights of incompetent people. Ms. Spears has every appearance of being ultra-competent musically, but is undoubtedly deficient in other areas. As are we all. After her father suffered a severe illness a few years ago, she had a breakdown. But reports now say she has been trying to end her decade-plus conservatorship for even longer.

Some of her public statements indicate that she has been gaslit and traumatized by people she loved. “I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m okay and I’m happy,” she has testified in court.

“I’m scared of people. I don’t trust people with what I’ve been through. . . .”

Without pretending to understand the legal mess, I side with Britney: “It’s not okay to force me to do anything I don’t want to do.”

Exactly. Slavery is not okay.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment

Pardon All the Non-Criminals

laws, police state, authoritarianism, totalitarian

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is pardoning mask and social-distancing scofflaws.

He says the pandemic mitigation rules amount to overreach. “These things with health should be advisory, they should not be punitive.”

I agree. But could he (and other governors) do more to help non-criminals?

At Reason.com, Billy Binion argues that there’s lots of over-criminalization that DeSantis could tackle. Consider the drug war. If you’re arrested in Florida for possessing up to 20 grams of pot, you “face a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison”; more than 25 grams, three to 15 years in the hoosegow.

DeSantis rejects the idea of legalizing recreational cannabis, so his “overreach” critique of public health law is limited.

Severely. 

Yet it is not as if the states don’t take numerous punitive actions against persons guilty only of naivety, carelessness, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time:

  • Depending on the state, it can be a bad idea to drive down the road with guns you legally own in your car trunk.
  • Collecting signatures for an initiative petition has sometimes been treated as a prison-worthy offense.
  • It can be a lousy idea to carry your life savings in the form of cash if there is any chance an official might notice and confiscate it. 

That latter problem, of civil asset forfeiture, would be tricky to fix at the back end, since if you’re not arrested for having the money, you can’t exactly be pardoned. But surely chief executives could take other actions to right such obvious wrongs.

Any state governor (or president) could do worse than spend, say, half of his or her time issuing pardons and finding other ways to help people caught by unjust government snares.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment media and media people

Make Journalism Illegal?

Journalist Tom Lemons may be jailed up to twenty years for investigating the Dawn Center, a shelter for victims of domestic violence in Hernando County, Florida.

Lemons talked to former employees and to women who sought help there. He learned about theft of donations, filthy conditions, and a chronically lawless atmosphere.

Now he is on trial for what he says are trumped-up charges designed to stop him from telling the tale. Lemons details his tribulations in his book Victim Shopping 101: The truth doesn’t always set you free.

The alleged cover-up may not be limited to the county sheriff’s office and county politicians. The Florida legislature has passed a law making it illegal to identify women’s shelters.

According to a recent press release by State Senator Ileana Garcia, “Senate Bill 70 makes it a first degree misdemeanor, or a felony upon a second or subsequent conviction [to maliciously disclose] any descriptive information or image that may identify the location of a certified domestic violence center.”

So . . . arrest the Internet?

As Lemons tells PJ Media’s Megan Fox, the shelter “promotes their services and fundraising events all the time on social media.” The point of the law, he believes, is only to stop him from distributing his documentary about the shelter, Behind the Gate, which the statute would outlaw.

Lemons’ April 28 interview is on YouTube. 

Fox urges Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to do something to counter this travesty of justice. Vetoing SB 70 would be a start.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment

Bodycam vs. Phonecam

police cam

When an LA County Sheriff’s deputy pulled over a woman driving a Mercedes, she went on a tear that quickly become infamous. “You’re always gonna be a Mexican,” she scolded the cop, “you’ll never be white, you know that, right?”

Undoubtedly, this racist taunt from a black female motorist, confirmed by Fox News to be an area teacher, was in the name of anti-racism. Wokely, assuming that to be Latino and a cop must mean he “wants to be white.”

She claims that she became afraid of the deputy, who she kept calling a “murderer,” so she started recording him. Indeed, he pulled her over because she had been using her cell phone to record . . . while driving! After the stop, she continued to record him, which she (correctly) said she had every right to do. He persevered and gave her a ticket for having used her phone while driving.

He had a bodycam on, which his department does not require. The video he sent Fox journalist Bill Melugin no doubt got in front of The Narrative.

The woman, a serial complainer about police, did indeed file a complaint about his behavior.

Folks who earnestly worry about police abuse — and not, like this woman, who did so in a paranoiac and ideological and racist manner — might consider getting something for road altercations themselves: one for the dash, but also one on their very own person. And something that is not a phone! At least when driving.

Has the utility of the “cop cam” ever been better demonstrated?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo by Yannick Gingras

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With Our Own Eyes

Police body-cam video cannot bring back the dead. Nor end racism or prevent tragedy. 

What point-of-policing video can capture is solid and critical evidence. After a deadly police encounter, body-cam footage gives the public confidence that the truth will soon come out. 

But only if police consistently and promptly release relevant video to the public.

Consider last week’s tragedy in Columbus, Ohio, where a policeman shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she was preparing to stab another young women. Many politicians and those in the media were ready to herald it as “the latest in a string of deadly videos documenting the final moments of a person of color killed by law enforcement.” 

The cop-cam video, however, clearly showed a policeman firing his gun to prevent one person of color from stabbing another. Just what we want police of any color to do.

NBC Nightly News still managed to mangle its reporting, editing out the image of the knife. In the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin, you may remember, NBC News broadcast Zimmerman’s 911 call but dishonestly edited part of the conversation to inject a racial element where none had been.*

And, sure, even staring at incontrovertible videotape evidence of good police behavior, some took to defending knife-fighting as a youthful rite of passage.

But everyone can see the footage for themselves.

In another fatal shooting last week, police attempted to serve an arrest warrant in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. But under state law police are not required, short of a court order, to release police body-cam video. 

Citizens are going to court.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The local Jacksonville, Florida, NBC affiliate fired three employees over the incident.

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Photo by Lance

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Nightmare Narratives

Beware the America we see on our screens.

A friend posted something on Facebook tying three recent stories together, what he called “brazenly false narratives many progressives have peddled.”

The first being that those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th were treated more gently than Black Lives Matter activists would have been. Back in January, then President-Elect Biden made a point of offering this stark racial takeaway, sans evidence.*

The second narrative? That the Atlanta shooting spree was motivated by anti-Asian hatred, six of the nine people shot, eight killed, being Asian. But there is yet no evidence of racism; another, quite different motive appears to have spurred the massacre.

Nonetheless, on NBC Meet the Press last Sunday, Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. said the Atlanta shooting was part of “this panic around the whiteness of this country.” The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart echoed that emotion in a weekend column, “Asian Americans must not fight white terror alone.”

Yet, weeks ago, The Post informed readers, “Tensions between Asian and Black communities also date back decades and have been reignited by videos that show Black perpetrators in many of the recent attacks on Asian Americans.”

The terror is diverse.

Lastly, the Boulder shooter was taken alive — which “must” mean (if you are catching on) that he is . . . white. Some referred to the killer as a “white Christian terrorist” . . . problem being (you guessed it) he turned out to be a Syrian immigrant — and Muslim. Causing mass tweet deletes, including by Vice-President Harris’s niece.**

Like me, you probably meet a lot of nice people, white and black and Asian and Middle Eastern . . . of both sexes, various genders, differing religions . . . all the time . . . before the pandemic, anyway. 

But no film at 11.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I made a point here of calling him on it — thanks to David Bernstein’s excellent analysis at The Volokh Conspiracy. 

** The removed tweet by 36-year-old attorney and author Meena Harris, had declared in part: “Violent white men are the greatest terrorist threat to our country.” 

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crime and punishment national politics & policies

ICE De-Taloned

Talon

Occasionally, an outlier appears in politics, someone who follows through on campaign promises. Many people say that Donald Trump was one of those outliers, being someone who actually delivered to his voters the most conservative administration of our lifetimes.

I have heard precisely the opposite, too. But that is not an outlier: in politics, opposite opinions appear right next to each other all the time. Yet, however we judge a politician for letting voters down, when we do see a pol keeping a promise, it is worth noting.

So now that President Joe Biden has nixed Operation Talon, scratch a mark upon the wall.

One of Mr. Trump’s major concerns was immigration — “the Wall” being the most infamous notion. Somewhat less well-known was Trump’s aim to put Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) back on a law-and-order footing, cracking down on actual criminality associated with (and piled on top of) “mere” illegal entry into the country. Operation Talon was an attempt to do just that, cracking down on sex trafficking crimes among the illegal alien set.*

It was a very focused ICE program.

AOC’s wing of the Democrats, on the other hand, want to abolish ICE entirely.

Now, the likelihood of either a Democratic Congress or President Biden following through on abolition seems about zero. But something could be done. ICE could be made to stop going after real criminals.

And so Mr. Biden has. Attorneys general in 18 states have formally complained about it, though, stating that Operation Talon was actually useful in their states’ core mission of fighting crime.

But, hey: no matter; Biden delivered on a promise.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* It is worth remembering that the U.S. Marshals have also made many successful operations, during the last administration, against domestic child sex trafficking rings, as covered here last year.

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Even Libertarians

John Brennan

Former CIA Director John Brennan raised eyebrows, last week, when he said on MSNBC that officials in the new administration “are now moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas, where they germinate in different parts of the country and they gain strength and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, Nativists, even libertarians.”

Tellingly, he doesn’t mention any specific groups by name. Like antifa (cough). But in America there have been a few violent groups engaged in what might be called “insurgencies.”

It is almost as if Brennan has forgotten the groups that this past year have gone so far as to set up political territory within major American cities, proclaiming independence from these United States. Such “autonomous zones” (hastily and violently constructed in Seattle and elsewhere) existed for days and weeks on end but failed to spark the Democrats’ “laser-like” attention as did the capitol break-in, which just so happened to be an assault upon them. 

Why ignore antifa but focus on . . . “even libertarians”? 

While libertarians defend freedom and peaceful change, the Democratic Party and the Deep State seem to find mass protest combined with violence in causes they like helpful (“Black Lives Matter,” etc.). For increasing their insider power, no doubt, and ramping it up to new, oppressive levels. But mass protest (say, against the lockdowns) they regard as dangerous — because corrosive to their power. 

Meanwhile, antifa in Portland have taken to the streets and attacked Democratic Party offices. 

Violence is not something we should be cavalier about. Or partisan about. Oppose it all. Period.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment Regulating Protest

Mostly Peaceful Protest?

police, baton, riots

Crimes committed yesterday at the capitol should be prosecuted. 

Let’s make that the rule from now on, not the exception.

I’m not suggesting long prison terms for trespassing, smashing windows, small-scale vandalism. But we have a right (and almost a duty) to insist that people respect the lives and property of others, no exceptions.  

That’s Civilization 101.

Last summer, I think the cavalier attitude displayed by many public officials (Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler comes to mind) — and media outlets — toward looting and riots, as well as intimidation and violence directed at innocent individuals sent the wrong signal to . . . bad people on all sides.

Mostly peaceful protest isn’t good enough.

As the dust settles, we will learn more and discuss further. Note that as I put this and myself to bed last night, Congress was back at work but not yet finished certifying the Electoral College results.

Speaking of doing one’s job, in yesterday’s chaos, I witnessed one policemen apply some finesse to protecting the capitol — by de-escalating the tense situation. The mob he confronted refused to heed his instruction to leave the capitol. As the officer retreated up the stairs, they were on his heels. To delay their advance and stop them from overtaking him, he would turn upon reaching each floor’s threshold and threaten them with his baton. 

But he didn’t hit them. If would have been disastrous for him to do so, because even with a baton he was badly outmanned: mob against one.

Soon, however, he was able to get to reinforcements, who together appeared to block the insurgents.

A few moments of wise restraint. Too rare these days.

Not to mention some fancy footwork. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Finally Fed Up

Ted Wheeler, Portland, Mayor

We keep returning to Portland — from a safe distance.

Why?

Because rioters keep rioting there. 

And because the people tasked to protect lawful order keep making nicey-nice with the thugs.

But maybe not anymore.

Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, is apparently finally fed up, thanks to the most recent mass mayhem, conducted to ring in the New Year.

What’s motivating the newfound concern for innocent victims? More than any epiphany about the proper responsibilities of government, it may be the average age and modal hue of the current batch of rioters — as well as Wheeler’s awareness that Joe Biden sort of won the election, so haven’t the rioters already got what they wanted?

“Why would a group of largely white, young and some middle-age men destroy the livelihood of others who are struggling to get by?” Mayor Wheeler asks. 

Rhetorically.

You’ve had months, Mr. Mayor, to mull the motives of such persons as they ravage Portland. But I will assume you are sincere. So I will tell you.

Pull out your notebook. The “why” is: bad ideas plus bad character. They feed on each other. Gain insight into Marx, Marcuse, et al., on the one hand, and, on the other, thugs happy to rationalize their sprees. Then you will understand.

Yes, it’s time indeed to stop your “good-faith efforts at de-escalation”; it’s high time to use “additional tools,” like physical force, to stop the criminals who are committing their crimes right in front of you.

Oh, and by the way: it’s your job.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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